Flags used by Musicians This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website Flags used by Musicians Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors Please note that flags in this sections are used in various ways (live concerts, music videos, paraphernalias, etc...) and while they might be meant to represent fictional entities, they are nonetheless not considered to be part of the fictional flags section unless they have also been used in a work of fiction (book, game, etc...). On this Page: Elephunk Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec , 8 July 2007 The Black Eyed Peas in Somalian mode? at least on the cover of their album Elephunk. Jan Mertens, 7 July 2007 Chaos Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec , 5 July 2007 In an old issue of the magazine "Creem" was a feature on the Heavy Metal band Blue Oyster Cult. It had a photograph of the band performing live with a large Nazi-style banner or backdrop behind the band.

It had a red field and white disc, but had in place of the swastika the symbol of the Blue Oyster Cult which is something like this: with a vertical line above the dot and a horizontal line on either side of the dot. As at least one member of the band is Jewish, IIRC, they were almost certainly not making any nod to a band crypto-fascism. Rather, the band emerged in the wake of the so-called "Summer of Love" and their dark and brooding style was in direct opposition to the hippie notions of love and peace of that time. You can see the flag here For a closer look at the symbol, look here John Evosevic, 18 October 2002 Their symbol was supposedly the Greek symbol of chaos and had nothing to do with neo-fascism or Nazis.�I have been a Blue Oyster Cult fan since 1971 and all of us have known this since then. Greg Biggs, 18 October 2002 Some further comments on Blue Oyster Cult, as listed on that page.

Yes, at least one of their core members is Jewish (Eric Bloom and Sandy Pearlman both are, IIRC), and the logo is not intended to be antisemitic/neonazi. The symbol is featured somewhere (even if hidden) on each of the band's album covers. On one album - "On your feet or on your knees" - it is shown on a car flag (a la the flags of presidents and other high ranking officials).

On this cover, the flag is white with the symbol in red, as shown here The symbol, according to Wikipedia, is "that of Kronos , the king of the Titans and father of Zeus in Greek mythology, and is the alchemical symbol for lead, one of the heaviest of metals." James Dignan , 3 July 2007 Rastafarian Flag Image by António Martins-Tuválkin , 7 June 2007 A long time ago, back in 1999 or so I reported and GIFfed a flag I glipsed on TV: It was a red-up rastafarian flag (Ethiopian-based red-yellow-green horizontal tricolor) with a black sold David star on the yellow stripe, standing on two points and tangent at the stripes edge. The screen caption read Burning Spear, and may have been archival footage. I'm persistent enough to send it a second time after eight years. According to the English Wikipedia , Burning Spear is the name of a reggae band, and later the stage name of its lead singer, Winston Rodney (born 1948).

I tried to find online the Rasta flag with solid black David star, but I found none (but see last link below). I recall a large flag hanging on the stage background during concert; the David star symbolism should have obvious connections to the interpretation of the Bible in Rastafarian religion. I found however other uses of flags by Burning Spear, in what may be typical Rastafarian and/or reggae musician usage, some photos showing: Ethiopian tricolor with golden lion: Land of Confusion Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec , 2 September 2006 This is a flag that appears in an animated music video by the group Disturbed for their cover of the song "Land of Confusion," originally by Genesis. Detail of screengrab here . The video shows the masked allegorical figure of Anarchy leading a mob into battle against the forces of the repressive, warmongering world order, represented by caricatures of the leaders of the great powers and presided over by a similarly allegorical Corruption.

(I seem to recall that the original 1980s Genesis music video did something similar with foam puppets of Reagan, Thatcher and Mitterand.) The flag of the world order appears several times - flying in front of the UN, in particular - and is a rather unimaginative Nazi knockoff with an oddly angular "$" sign in place of the swastika. Eugene Ipavec , 2 september 2006 American Idiot Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec , 16 February 2006 I recall vaguely a Green Day video where the band were standing in front of a melting black and white US flag. unfortunately, I cant' remember what the song was. James Dignan , 3 July 2007 A band which has made use of altered S&S imagery is a video by Green Day for their song "American idiot", which has the band performing in front of a giant green and white American flag. James Dignan , 13 February 2009 The flag can be seen attached as . Oddly enough this is the pre-1959 flag, with 48 stars.

Eugene Ipavec , 16 February 2009 Image by António Martins-Tuválkin , 4 July 2007 A flag can be seen here Esteban Rivera , 30 June 2007 You can have access to information about the image, in context, here as said the cover of 2006 album A Matter of Life and Death, described here . It is a black pirate -like flag with the typical "Eddie, the head" facial features and army helmet in the skull, and crossed sub-automatic rifles(?) under it (instead of the classical bones). António Martins-Tuválkin , 4 July 2007 Laibach Image by Olivier Touzeau, 10 July 2007 Some of you may have heard of the musical band Laibach, a group from Slovenia which makes parodic and industrial music and uses totalitarist and fascist symbols and aesthetics in a provocative way. Remember that Laibach is the german name of Ljubljana... The band began its carreer in the early 1980ies.

Laibach uses a black vertical banner during its concerts, with its logo (cogwheel and Malevitch cross). I send the gif, you can see it in use heres and here for example. The group website can be access here Olivier Touzeau, 10 July 2007 Former member of Abba Image by Pete Loeser, 29 May 2015 and António Martins-Tuválkin, 10 February 2016 Former member of ABBA, Anni-Frid Synni (Princess Reuss of Plauen), widely known as Frida, or by her maiden name of Frida Lyngstad, did some solo works. This flag is from an album all sung in Swedish in the 1990s. The video pictures are part colour and part black/white, and the lyrics are unfortunately not in sync with the pictures. The flag is vertically white-red-white-red, with a soldier in Napoleonic-era gear next to it.

A screen capture can be seen here Elias Granqvist, 28 April 2009 Shock Symbol Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec & Joseph McMillan, 5 July 2007 Marilyn Manson used a huge altered American flag in his concerts a few years ago. It featured his "shock symbol", a downward-pointing lightning-bolt arrow in a circle, in place of the 50 stars in the blue field. As far as an image is concerned, I can only point you to the website of one of his T-shirt makers Sean Wilkinson , 14 April 2003 It reminds me of the logo used by the British Union of Fascists. Marc Pasquin, 2 July 2007 Black Shock Symbol Hanging flag Image by Ant�nio MARTINS-Tuv�lkin, 23 January 2008 I think he has also used the symbol on long vertically hanging flag- like drapings on his concerts. These were black with the symbol in red and white, IIRC, and reminded me slightly of the German flag of 1935-1945.

Elias Granqvist, 15 April 2003 I remember another flag of Marilyn Manson, by the way. It was a long vertical hanging in black with a white circle with red bordure in centre. In the white circle was a back symbol which I am not sure of, but if I recall correctly it was one lightningbolt looking almost like the S used in the emlem of Nazi-German SS; perhaps it was a stylized M though. Manson had this on stage at some show. Elias Granqvist, 1 July 2007 I believe that what Elias is talking about is this image located here Esteban Rivera , 2 July 2007 This image is a first-class example of how not to combine colours: red and black do not provide adequate contrast for a clear emblem. The tincture rule does make sense, after all. The combination also carries strongly negative emotions. Mike Oettle, 2 July 2007 Tell that to the Albanians ! Mind you, it is true that the red/black combination is particularly common in fascist and fascist-inspired flags.

James Dignan, 2 July 2007 Funny, I always associated red-black with leftist anarchists , not with fascists. Go figure... Albert S. Kirsch, 3 July 2007 Actually. that combination of colours isn't at all common in fascist flags. Simply fascist flags come in all sorts of colours and designs. It's the nazi and nazi-inspired variant that have some uniformity in colours and designs, and those are not black and red: they are black, red and "white", the colours the original nazis took from the german imperial flag. Red and black, whitout white, are connected instead with two quite different ideological trends: the anarchists, especially of the anarcho-syndicalist variant, and the trotskytes, the followers of the 4th International. Jorge Candeias, 3 July 2007 As I recall it, the field within the red circle was white, and there were no small objects beside the lightning bolt (the small objects which are so small in this picture it is hard to figure out what they are).

However, it was a long time since I saw it and it was on a small screen TV showing parts of a concert, so I might be mistaken. Elias Granqvist, 27 January 2008 Prototype Flag Image by Pete Loeser, 29 May 2015 A flag appears in the music video Prototype, that sort of tells a love story between an alien and a earth woman. The flag is white with a small black 8-pointed star in the middle, which also appears in the clothes (some kind of uniform) of the aliens. So it's meant to be the flag of the aliens, I guess. Jorge Candeias, 4 january 2006 Outcast Black and White Flag with Upside down Stars Image by Pete Loeser, 29 May 2015 The Outkast also uses black and white US flags [similar to the ones used by Young Jeezy and Kanye West ], pictured on their album covers and used as a stage backdrop. There were two types of this flag. There was one where the stars were upright and one where they were upside down [as shown here].

Zachary Harden, 4 january 2006 What was meant with this design? Anything to do with Marilyn Manson who used/uses a similarly described variation of the US flag? What was the exact change? Blue and red as black?, or blue as white with black stars?, and/or black and white stripes but starting (and ending) with a white stripe? António Martins-Tuválkin, 7 january 2006 Do the Evolution Flag Image by Eugene Ipavec, 16 February 2009 I was looking at these things recently: A video by Pearl Jam ("Do the evolution"), in which a red background banner with a white disc on (resembling a Nazi banner) is displayed.

Esteban Rivera, 5 December 2006 The Pearl Jam video is a extremely dark and misanthropic 5-minute animated recap of the last few billion years or so; the band does not appear in it (they stopped out of bitterness after their video for the song "Jeremy" was unfairly accused of encouraging teen suicide, if I remember correctly.) The flag which appears was as Esteban notes obviously meant to be a Nazi banner; the animators probably used the S-like stand-in symbol because a swastika would have limited the video's broadcast opportunities. A screencap detail (from Youtube) can be seen here . Eugene Ipavec, 15 February 2009 Pink ; Image by Pete Loeser, 29 May 2015 In the music video for the song "Trouble", performed by American singer Pink, there is a red flag with three black six pointed stars in the centre. Obviously it is a flag for the people Pink fights in the video, because at the end she rips the flag down.

Elias Granqvist, 1 january 2004 Prince Image by Jorge Candeias From 1993.06.07 to 2000, US music perfomer Prince Rogers Nelson (born 1958), used as his career name an unpronounceable symbol, replacing the former denomination "The Artist" (a.k.a. "The Artist, formerly known as Prince"), which itself replaced the original name "Prince". This artist is now Prince again. Following a hazy recollection of this symbol on flags in a Prince clip, I used the symbol I found here and put it in yellow on a purple background. This is how I seem to recall having seen this symbol used in flags, though I might be (quite) away from the truth. For what is worth, the color purple is widely used in the layout of the "artist's" website .

Anto'nio Martins-Tuva'lkin , 27 july 2002 Well, my not so fuzzy recollection of this video (a music clip produced as if it was a live concert, or a real live concert, I don't really remember) tells me that the symbol was golden on a white flag, waved proudly by TAFKAP (The Artist Formerly Known As Prince). The symbol itself was reflecting light as if it was made of little pieces of glass, I suppose to give the idea of gold. Jorge Candeias , 29 july 2002 Rage Against the Machine Image by Eugene Ipavec & Joseph McMillan, 5 July 2007 The music band Rage Against The Machine uses a flag (image taken from here ) based on that of the United States) during almost every concert as can be seen here (image taken from musicfanclubs.org ).

The sentence on top of the upside-down flag reads : "something doesn't smell good" Esteban Rivera, 27 june 2005 Rage Against the Machine Type #2 Image from Esteban Rivera, 23 January 2007 I saw on a July 29th concert held at Randall's Island in New York that the band "Rage Against The Machine" used another flag different than the one featured on the website. This flag is a plain black flag with a red star in the middle. Esteban Rivera, 23 January 2007 Sabaton Image by Eugene Ipavec , 8 July 2007 A flag appears on the cover of an album of Swedish war-metal band Sabaton as can be seen here - a blue flag with a pair of crossed rifles surrounded by three fleurs-de-lys, all white.

Eugene Ipavec, 7 July 2007 To read more about this band check the following: Official website and the wikipedia page Esteban Rivera, 7 July 2007 Type O Negative Flag for Vinnland Image by Jitse Verwer The flag for Vinnland, or more precisely "the people's technocratic republic of Vinnland" appears on the back of the three latest albums of the Goth-Rockgroup Type O Negative as well on numerous t-shirts. The flag is supposed to symbolize the republic of Vinnland situated in north America. Vinnland and it's flag are the brain child of the hulking blackhaired frontman of the band Type O Negative: Peter Steele. Steele incorporated his idea's of paganism, left/right wing political flirtations and his own heritage (his mother was part Icelandic) into a concept of a repubic named after the first name the Vikings gave to north America: Vinland. The Vikings landed in New Foundland around 1000 a.d. and built a colony there.Steele takes this idea and tries to imagine what America would be like if the Vikings had actualy stayed, and built a civilisation there.

Based on that he designed a new flag in a scandinavian cross patern and gives it his favorite colours: green, black and white (which coincedently remind me of the german war cross). The concept of the people's technocratic republic only apears once in the songtitle "The glorious liberation of the people's technocratic republic of Vinnland by the combined forces of the united territories of Europa". In one of his interviews Steele says that he thinks the world would be better off if it were governed by scientists, hence technocratic. for more information see here Jitse Verwer, 8 december 2000 It is a historical fact, that vikings really got to what now is called Newfoundland, and probably to Labrador and perhaps even more to the south of the North American coast too. However, they did not call that land "Vinnland" but Vinland. It is thought that the name came from the presence of currants ("vinbär" in modern Swedish), not of a supposed presence of vine or grapes. Elias Granqvist , 9 december 2000 The X Flag Image by Zachary Harden This flag is from a rap artist named Xzibit.

He used this flag in his video "X", and it has a gaunt X on a yellow background. Four of these were seen, all on cars owned by Xzibit. Zachary Harden , 9 february 2001 Image by Eugene Ipavec, 8 January 2008 Here's yet another flag, this time for Rap artist/band Wu-Tang Clan, located here . Esteban Rivera , 2 July 2007 Young Jeezy and Kanye West Image by Joseph McMillan, 20 August 2008 I recently happened across a music video which featured - both as a backdrop and in regular use - many black/white US flags [These black and white US flags are also used by the musical group OutKast]. According to Wikipedia : "Put On" is a song by rappers Young Jeezy and Kanye West, from the album "The Recession." Its music video is "aimed at the recession." In the video, Silver & Black American Flags are hung up around neighborhoods and businesses, representing change.

The flags in the video are quite striking in appearance; the context makes them a combination protest/mourning/campaign flag, "change" being the slogan of the Obama campaign. West in particular is known for being politically outspoken, having famously berated the current president on live TV during a Katrina benefit. Esteban Rivera , 2 July 2007 X Clan Image by Tomislav Todorovic, 9 May 2015 X Clan is a hip-hop group from Brooklyn, New York, which was founded in 1989. From the beginning, their lyrics have been containing references to ancient Egyptian subjects. Because of that, their symbol is a red-black-green hortizontal striped flag with a large yellow/golden ankh centered on it. They wear shoulder and breast patches with this pattern, as seen in the video for their song "Weapon X" and a number of promotion photos, but there also are examples of its use as their flag. Sources: American Idiot at Berkeley Rep Prologue: from the Managing Director Welcome! We are so delighted to be presenting the world premiere of American Idiot. This is another in a long line of new works that have been nurtured at Berkeley Rep.

Many of those plays remain among the most loved of our productions here in the Bay Area long after they’ve become established favorites in theatres across the country. As a nonprofit theatre, we take great pride in our ability to support and develop new work, to champion projects that stretch traditional definitions of theatre and to attract new audiences. In large part, we are able to accomplish those goals because we are supported by a community that is smart, thoughtful and generous. Berkeley Rep’s engaged and demanding audience has been essential to the special alchemy necessary to create ambitious work. You were among the first to champion Passing Strange, which was just a good idea until it became genre-bending theatrical reality on our Thrust Stage. You took Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice to heart before it became a commercial success on the “other” coast. And your attentive enthusiasm provided the kickboard that Sarah needed last winter to launch In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), which will enjoy a Broadway run this fall, also directed by Les Waters. Over the years, your embrace of new writers has allowed us to originate new work by many of the most innovative playwrights working today.

Naomi Iizuka, Danny Hoch, Sarah Jones, Tony Kushner, Will Eno, Jordan Harrison, Stew and so many others have been welcomed by all of you. While it takes great artists to produce great work, it takes a discerning audience to give that work a life. I think that between you and Berkeley Rep, we’ve been a pretty good partnership. American Idiot is only the first production of our upcoming seven-play season. We’ve got six more fantastic shows planned, including three more world premieres. So if you haven’t already done so, order tickets to see them all. The more shows you buy, the better the price. Become a Berkeley Rep regular and become part of the partnership that makes great plays. Warmly, Green Day: Homegrown heroes By Madeleine Oldham Every kid grows up dreaming of making his or her mark on the world. Some end up altering those dreams to suit reality. Others alter reality to suit their dreams.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day’s lead singer/guitarist, along with bass player Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool, doggedly pursued their musical aspirations in the face of astronomically unlikely odds and have succeeded in achieving heights beyond even their own imaginations, garnering worldwide accolades and acclaim previously unheard of for a trio of punk kids. Born in 1972, the youngest of six children, Billie Joe Armstrong spent his childhood in the small industrial town of Rodeo, California. His father drove a truck to pay the bills, occasionally finding work as a part-time jazz drummer, and his mother waited tables at Rod’s Hickory Pit. Armstrong’s father died when Armstrong was 10, and he retreated into the one thing that made him feel better: music. His talent for singing had been discovered by his family at the age of five, and he started taking music lessons and entertaining people in retirement homes and hospitals. Even at such a young age, his effortless charisma charmed his audiences, and it was immediately apparent that he had a natural gift for showmanship.

As he got older, Armstrong began to look past the Broadway tunes and standards he’d learned as a small child, and toward the expansive frontier of rock and roll. An ever-evolving genre, rock and roll repeatedly propels itself into the future with constant reinvention. The long jams of the early ‘70s soon gave way to shorter, punchier songwriting. Punk rock burst onto the scene in 1977, blasting its way through the first part of the decade’s meandering guitar solos with power chords and attitude to spare. New Wave and its love affair with the synthesizer rose up in the early ‘80s as a different answer to the offerings of the previous decade. And then the revolution was televised: MTV made its debut on August 1, 1981, introducing a new dimension to the world of music. Young people across America were riveted to their television sets, devouring this opportunity to see the songs they heard on the radio interpreted visually. Some artists acted out storylines that accompanied their music; others filmed high-octane live performances. Videos forever changed the relationship between musicians and their audiences.

Now any fan, not just those who lived near big cities and could afford concert ticket prices, could see a band play and study the image that band wanted to project. While he began to dream about what he would look and sound like as a rock star, 11-year-old Billie Joe Armstrong met Mike Pritchard, a middle-school classmate seeking solace from his foster parents’ fighting and financial struggles. The two formed an immediate bond and started playing guitar together for hours on end, planting the seeds of stardom in otherwise unremarkable suburban bedrooms. Music provided the outlet both needed for their energy and their emotions, and the two grew increasingly serious about it over the next few years. A rotating cast of friends joined them for jam sessions, ultimately resulting in the formation of their first band: Sweet Children. Named after an early Armstrong composition, Sweet Children started slowly, with the boys’ constant recruiting of friends to watch them play in living rooms and at school. They practiced diligently and quickly established themselves as far more serious than your average high-school dabblers. Though their music was loud and upbeat, few people classified it as punk rock—the songs embraced a heavy pop influence and were considered too soft to fall under punk auspices.

Armstrong and Pritchard, however, began to gravitate toward punk ideology and soon embedded themselves deeply in the burgeoning Bay Area punk scene. That scene galvanized itself when 924 Gilman Street opened on December 31, 1986 (see “The punk rock aesthetic and the 924 Gilman Street Project”). Armstrong and Pritchard, after years of feeling like outsiders, finally found a community of like-minded musicians, activists and artists who welcomed them into their fold with open arms. Gilman, however, did not endorse their music right away. Deemed not punk enough, Sweet Children failed to persuade the booking people to give them a slot at one of the club’s shows. That changed when prominent scenester John Kiffmeyer joined the band as its drummer. Pritchard switched from guitar to bass, thereafter becoming known as Mike Dirnt (see “What’s in a (nick)name?”). The rotating friends petered out, and the lineup cemented with Armstrong, Dirnt and Kiffmeyer. Kiffmeyer added a necessary ingredient of age and experience, lending Sweet Children a punk credibility they previously lacked. The band played its Gilman debut in November 1988.

No one had ever loved the name Sweet Children. It had served its purpose, but in preparing to make their first record, the band retired it in favor of Green Day, an irreverent nod to their penchant for pot-smoking. Local label Lookout Records released Green Day’s first album, 39/Smooth, in 1990 to favorable response. The underground network of fanzines, mail order and touring circuits embraced the band wholeheartedly and word spread quickly. Dirnt graduated from high school, and the band left on its first national tour that very day. Things shifted when Kiffmeyer went off to college. Armstrong and Dirnt’s drive to take the band to the next level intensified, which did not mesh with seeing their drummer only on school holidays. They turned to teenage superstar Tré Cool to fill the void. Cool’s reputation preceded him as one of the best local drummers on the scene. Though Kiffmeyer was instrumental in securing the band’s early success, Cool’s drumming proved the final piece of the puzzle that pulled its sound together. The band got better and better, and bigger and bigger.

In 1993, they made a monumental decision to leave Lookout Records and move over to Warner Brothers. In punk parlance, signing with a major label was akin to an unforgivably egregious foul, but Armstrong’s ambition persuaded them to go for it despite some of their early supporters’ perceived betrayal. This strategy has backfired for many a band attempting to make the jump from underground celebrities to commercial superstars. Fortunately, the risk paid off in spades for Armstrong and Company. The stars aligned for Green Day during the early ‘90s. Widely credited with breaking down the barrier between the Top 40 charts and punk rock, Nirvana’s 1991 release Nevermind paved the way for a new, harder-edged sound to enter the mainstream. In the coming years, bands with punk-rock roots would capture the public ear: bands like Rancid, The Offspring and, most popular of all, Green Day. Their major label debut, 1994’s Dookie, was a smash hit, and the band received an invitation to play Woodstock’s 30th anniversary festival. This event marked their transformation from just another band with a successful album to megastardom.

As it did at the first Woodstock, rain pelted the crowd and turned the outdoor venue into a giant pit of mud. When Green Day took the stage, they began with their hit song “Welcome to Paradise.” This ignited some audience members’ ironic sensibilities, and they proceeded to throw mud at the band. Armstrong egged them on, turning the whole affair into a full-on mud fight. The wildfire publicity gained the band a national reputation as chaos-loving, devil-may-care, play-by-their-own-rules rock-and-rollers. The band managed to stay true to its punk-rooted respect for anarchy and its grassroots values of audience engagement at an event with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. The band realized it did not have to water down its style, either in personality or performance, and that it just might be possible to balance punk rock with the public eye. Subsequent years saw the band’s success ebb and flow, and eventually the trio grew creatively restless. Once an artist has a body of work, expectations arise among admirers and fans. Even the most independent-minded person can’t help but feel increased pressure when the public is so eagerly anticipating his or her next move.

Green Day got stuck in 2003, but the missing master tapes for their new album provided an unexpected catalyst for recalibration. The band is rumored to have formed a mysterious side project called The Network (their aliases believed to be Fink, Van Gogh and The Snoo) which, despite the band’s public denial that they are The Network, seemed to infuse a long-lost sense of mischief. Songwriting became fun again, and the band’s creative juices overflowed, generating one of the most beloved albums in recent memory: 2004’s American Idiot. The record netted them that year’s Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. With American Idiot, they also found a political voice previously unexpressed in their songwriting, one that carried over into their 2009 release and second rock opera, 21st Century Breakdown. Looking back over their 20-year career, the kernels of this voice can be traced to their punk-rock foundation. Instilled in them early on were values of speaking one’s mind, of fighting for what one believes to be justice, of turning fear into something productive, of battling against the insidiousness of apathy and of staying true to one’s roots.

Most of those values are embedded within both rock operas. Green Day have proven their ability to mature as a band over time, without losing sight of where they started. This ability to challenge themselves while preserving their authentic voices has earned them their well-deserved reputation as one of the greatest rock bands of our time. From the director There is one narrative in the record American Idiot: the story of the Jesus of Suburbia who goes to the City, meets St. Jimmy and a girl called Whatsername, and finds himself caught in a struggle between authenticity and fabrication; between emotional connection and the numbing effects of drugs. When I began to open the story up, I called the Jesus character Johnny and gave him two close friends: Will and Tunny, each with his own story as well. And the show became a three-fold journey of self-discovery. Will, whose girlfriend Heather is pregnant, stays in Suburbia and becomes the victim of his own inertia; Tunny has a television-induced mystical revelation that moves him to enlist in the military, bringing him face to face with his mortality in a senseless war in the Middle East.

Although I was committed to keeping all the songs from the record in order, I found that by incorporating two songs that were released as B sides of American Idiot in Europe, I could flesh out Will and Tunny’s stories more effectively. And when Green Day began work on their magnificent new record 21st Century Breakdown, the new songs were made available to me, and Billie Joe and I decided to use four of them to further enhance the dimensions of our characters. The larger canvas we were creating absorbed these new songs as if they were written for our story, and the superb arrangements that Tom Kitt created held the entire score together. After our workshop in December 2008, I felt we needed one more song for Johnny to sing to Whatsername—a song that would reveal the truest and most vulnerable side of Johnny—the side of him that St. Jimmy held no sway over. One night this spring Billie Joe played me a song he has never recorded, one he wrote for his now-wife Adrienne when he was 19 years old. That song, called “When It’s Time,” seemed perfect to me, and when we incorporated it into the show, our score felt truly complete for the first time.

Michael Mayer For those about to rock opera, we salute you It only took about 10 years or so after the birth of rock and roll for the first rock opera to appear. While a record only needs a loose unifying theme to qualify as a concept album, a true rock opera requires a narrative component. Pete Townshend’s nine-minute suite of songs called “A Quick One While He’s Away” is widely considered to be the original foray into this territory, appearing in 1966 on The Who’s sophomore release, A Quick One. The Pretty Things’ 1968 album S.F. Sorrow claimed the title of first full-length rock opera. Both of these pieces heavily influenced The Who’s 1969 seminal Tommy. The 1970s celebrated the heyday of the rock opera. The Kinks, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner, Queen and Genesis offered their own spins on the idea. The genre easily complimented the popularity of progressive rock at the time—a term used to describe the popular penchant for experimentation and desire to strive for a more arty and less formulaic vibe.

The decade built to the 1979 release of Pink Floyd’s revolutionary album The Wall. Full-album storylines fell out of fashion in the 1980s, undergoing a relatively quiet period until recently. Green Day’s revolutionary releases, 2004’s American Idiot and 2009’s 21st Century Breakdown, mark both a triumphant return and a new chapter for the genre. These two albums stake their claims as the first punk rock operas, and have brought a fresh perspective to a time-honored legacy of rock-and-roll storytelling.

Green Day cites the following records as having a significant impact on the creation of their own brand of rock opera: The Who—“A Quick One While He’s Away” (1966), Tommy (1969) and Quadrophenia (1973) David Bowie—The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1970) Meatloaf—Bat Out of Hell (1977) The Rocky Horror Picture Show motion picture soundtrack (1975) Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice—Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) (Lloyd Webber and Rice released it as an album before turning it into a stage production) The punk rock aesthetic and the 924 Gilman Street Project By Madeleine Oldham Punk rock was born in the late ‘70s out of a reaction against the status quo, and in that way shares similar roots to the hippie movement of the ‘60s. But while the hippies chose peace as their primary tool, the punks chose the expression of anger. To many onlookers, this translated as nothing more than an excuse to behave badly.

Punk’s flamboyant side made an impression on the world that to this day still overshadows the depth and richness of the movement. Public opinion tends to focus on the obnoxious antics, the righteous anger or the questionable fashion, and dismisses punk as antisocial and unproductive behavior. But for those it touches, punk rock offers an antidote to a world that seems unbalanced and unacceptable. It quite literally saves lives when lonely, ostracized teenagers find others who share their sense of outrage at the world’s injustices, who understand that rebellion can be healthy and necessary and who know that anger can be channeled to affect positive change. Punk champions the DIY, or do-it-yourself, approach. It rewards participation and frowns on lethargy. Punk believes in equality for all—anyone can start a band, anyone can run a business, anyone can enter politics—and despises elitism of any sort. This value system has shaped many a young mind, famously including those of Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tré Cool. Green Day spent their teenage years as active members of punk mecca 924 Gilman Street.

Gilman opened its doors in Berkeley on New Year’s Eve 1986, providing a lifeline to kindred spirits everywhere. An all-ages, volunteer-run, alcohol- and drug-free, independent music venue and community-gathering space, Gilman quickly became a magnet for young punks searching for a place to call their own. Punks all over the world knew about Gilman. The club operated as a collective, and held weekly membership meetings for volunteers, requiring active contribution from everyone. The club encouraged activism and served as the gateway for thousands and thousands of young people to seize participatory roles in their own lives. This could take the form of playing in bands, organizing benefit shows for particular causes, holding political meetings, gathering signatures, educating other members about issues or connecting with punks in other cities and countries. Punk taught people to get involved, to take responsibility for something. Gilman adhered to an incredibly strict set of regulations for volunteer conduct, which could at times seem antithetical to a subculture that embraced anarchy and chaos. But the rules worked. They were designed to engender and ensure a respect for others and demanded nothing less.

Despite frequent feelings of frustration with the constraints these regulations created, no one can argue that the system didn’t succeed. After 22 years, the club is still going strong and still run by a volunteer collective. Gilman has also remained true to one of its more controversial original tenets: it continues to refuse support to bands on major labels. Five years after their first show at Gilman, Green Day heard the door slam behind them in a bittersweet irony: the place that had nurtured them and set them on the road to fame and fortune had to make a clean break once that fame and fortune was achieved. What’s in a (nick)name? It’s common in the world of punk rock to adopt a nickname. A moniker might be ironic (Tré Cool), literal (Mike Dirnt—named for the sound his bass made when he used to play it without amplification) or even a pun.

(Original Green Day drummer John Kiffmeyer went by the name of Al Sobrante, a play on the town he came from, El Sobrante.) Often these sobriquets used derogatory or negative adjectives as surnames—the most famous examples being Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten—in order to convey a proud refusal to conform to polite societal conventions. Other well-known aliases include Fat Mike, Poly Styrene, Joey Shithead, Richard Hell, Darby Crash, Cinder Block and Dave Insurgent. The birth of Green Day’s American Idiot musical Billie Joe Armstrong and director Michael Mayer reveal the Broadway bonding behind the punk rock opera By David Fricke …During the interviews for Rolling Stone’s recent Green Day cover, singer-guitarist-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong chatted about the impending production—and the shock of hearing someone else sing those songs. A week later, Mayer spoke to Rolling Stone about the theatrical Idiot, Green Day’s influence on Spring Awakening, and Armstrong’s instant recall of old Broadway showstoppers. Billie Joe Armstrong When did the notion of doing American Idiot as a musical first come up? American Idiot is a rock opera. But I was very self-conscious about it.

I didn’t want it to come across as pretentious. Someone said, “What is the influence?” I said, “This record has more in common with Rocky Horror than Leonard Cohen.” [Laughs] The idea was, “Wouldn’t it be great to make a film out of it?” Then the film idea fell through the cracks, which was a bummer. The enthusiasm got lost. Then the guy from Spring Awakening, Michael Mayer—he was doing an interview. Someone asked him what he wanted to do next, and he said he’d love to do the musical of American Idiot. One of the kids from the fan sites put that up. And a year and a half later, lo and behold, we get a call from him. What did you think of Spring Awakening once you saw it? I was floored. It was so uncharacteristic of what I thought theater was supposed to be. I had no idea what to expect and how unconventional Michael was, in the way he directed this old German play from the turn of the century. When I saw the show, I kept thinking that a couple of the songs—“Totally Fucked” and “The Bitch of Living”—sounded a lot like Green Day hits.

They had that sound and emotional resonance. “Totally Fucked”—I remember seeing that and going, “Did I write that?” It reminds me of “St. Jimmy” [on American Idiot]. You forget how talented those people are, these theater kids. They are completely, mind and body, involved in the theater, just as much as I lived punk rock. They embody the whole thing. Then I went to a workshop [for American Idiot], and I couldn’t fucking believe it. It’s incredible—all those voices singing your songs at you. It is a risky proposition—making a musical out of a record that already succeeds on its own and when you perform it in concert. This takes it out of your hands. Which is a good thing, especially after seeing what Michael did. There’s no intermission. It’s just blasting straight through for 75 minutes. It’s not a long play. He stuck to the spirit of the record, which is pulverizing. Like the show I saw you play last night. Right! Michael Mayer It was eerie to discover that you were such a fan of Green Day.

When I interviewed Spring Awakening composers Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, I kept mentioning Green Day whenever the subject of the song "Totally Fucked" came up. It was the effect I wanted. I was listening to American Idiot a lot when we were putting the final chunk of Spring Awakening together. I was literally like, “Guys, listen to this groove. Listen to that fat guitar lick. Why can’t we have this under here?” But the American Idiot album is not a complete story, more like songs and a couple of mini-operas. The people in it are a little older than those in Spring Awakening. It’s not the same adolescent thing. But it is a response to a seriously fucked-up environment, a political and social situation that became untenable. Why American Idiot instead of another classic punk record? Why not London Calling by the Clash? American Idiot felt so complete to me. The version we will end up performing will have other songs in it—two B sides from the European release and four from the new album [21st Century Breakdown]. But American Idiot has a huge emotional arc.

There was an amazing narrative that was, at times, perplexing and ambiguous, but also so full of possibilities with a multitude of voices. Some of the songs—I heard them as dialogue… How protective is Billie of his original material? I am basically doing the libretto. Billie was very much a part of it. I kept calling him and emailing him every different version of my scenario. But the libretto is basically akin to the libretto of The Who’s Tommy—there is no dialogue per se. I am inventing the way in which these songs function as dialogue—as narrative, as emotional maps. He actually knows a lot about classic musical theater. He grew up with those songs, performing them as a child. That was the thing that connected us so strongly. After we did the first concert version of the libretto—with these 12 actors and singers, performing the whole thing for the band—we all went out afterwards for dinner. I don’t know why, but at a certain point, Billie and I were sitting across from each other, singing a song together from Gypsy. It was hilarious. What do you hear in Billie as a songwriter, beyond the punk speed and guitars?

His songs have a richness and emotional pull that you don’t get from other songs in that genre. They are usually one-note rants—terrific, engaging. But there is a purity of humanity deep inside Billie’s songs. And it’s also his voice. How would you describe it? It’s unusual—tinged with a real edge, a kind of violence. But inside that shell is a sweet aching yearning that comes through in everything he sings. It seems contradictory. And that contradiction is fascinating. Do you think he could compose for the theater? When we were together the other night, he did say, “The next thing, after this, I want to write something completely new for you to direct.” If you’ve got the gift, who knows where it comes from and why. The great thing is to keep feeding it and take care of it. What is so remarkable to me is to watch him allow that gift to grow and to be unfettered by constraints that people want to put around it. At a certain point, songwriting is more important than image and labels. He’s not afraid of being uncool. And you know what? That’s the coolest thing of all.

From RollingStone.com, June 16, 2009. Copywright Rolling Stone LLC 2009. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted by Permission.

Question: Named after their 2004 number one album, what is the name of the stage musical based on the works of Green Day?
Answer: AMERICAN IDIOT